ATypI 08 St Petersburg

Session details

Pac-Man fever, quantum mechanics and the design of digital type

What do classic arcade gaming and subatomic particles have to do with typeface design? Maybe not as much as Ken and Tal would like to think, but nonetheless the inspiration behind inventive font features often comes from the most unlikely of places. Not only can the interplay of traditional type design and new technology profoundly impact the development of digital typefaces, but divergently unexpected sources can contribute to “intelligent” behavior in fonts, not to mention making them significantly easier to use. Referencing numerous cases studies, this presentation will demonstrate how outside influences— including probability theory and quantum physics—can lead to surprising font programming solutions.

Speaker details

Ken Barber is a type designer and letterer at House Industries and is particularly interested in the inter-disciplinary relationship between hand-lettering and type design. His work has been featured as part of the National Design Triennial at the Smithsonian Institution’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum and has also been honored by the New York Type Directors Club.

Tal Leming is a 1997 graduate of the Louisiana State University Graphic
Design program. After graduation he did stints as a designer at two
agencies in Louisiana. He left the deep south in 2001 for the mean
streets of Wilmington, Delaware where he worked at the legendary type
foundry House Industries. In 2005 he started his own company which
specializes in graphic design, typeface design, lettering and type
technology services.